Photo courtesy of Topinambour | Flickr

“Well, forgive me, but I don’t want to see your naked breast,” I was told in disgusted tones by a close friend in reference to nursing in public.

I can forgive this friend for her uninformed opinion, but I cannot forgive the society that produces such a negative attitude towards mothers. Here is the crux of my frustration. I am a new mother. I spent months and months leading up to the birth of my first child researching how to be a good mother to him. The subject I was most anxious about in all my study was breastfeeding.

I can give you an incredibly long list of websites and books that name the incredible and innumerable benefits of this natural method of feeding your infant. [To start with, here's what the Le Leche League and the World Health Organization have to say]. There’s no question in anyone’s mind that where infants are concerned, breastfeeding is the way to go. I was so anxious to get this right, to establish the breastfeeding bond, to do what was right by my little guy, that I spent hours studying it while I was working and going to school full time. — and, to toot my own horn, I did it! If there is anything I am doing right as a parent, it is the way I feed my little man and no one could argue with an almost 20 pound three month old. He is definitely benefiting in this regard.

Proof that breastfeeding works

So can someone please explain to me why societal attitudes insist that I should be ashamed of this? At best, I am looked at curiously while I cover my baby with a blanket, like some kind of circus performer — at worst, I am angrily banished to a dirty public restroom (because nursing facilities are, if anything, rare in public places) because what I am doing is disgusting to the majority of regular citizens. They “don’t want their children to see that” or worse, they are afraid that what I am doing will excite some kind of sexual response.

These attitudes frustrate me. Why is my choice to sustain life in the most natural of ways gross to most people?

Photo Courtesy of Nextors | Flickr

The WHO states that worldwide, less that 40% of mothers choose to breastfeed (and those few who do are banished to a box to do so). We now have a generation of adults who can not remember ever seeing a baby breastfeed. They’ve seen billboards of scantily-clad women, and after watching almost any pg-13 or R-rated movie they’ve heard or seen more innuendo than they have storyline, and they walk by women who put a great part of their bodies on display day after day with the motivation of being provocative … but a breastfeeding mother? Not so. That is unacceptable. It is this woman that they must hide away.

We are not flashing you to be provocative or to make some kind of point. We are sustaining life; we are creating joy; we are furthering civilization. But we are wrong somehow. What we do is socially abhorrent.

WHY?!

Yes, let’s hide this beautiful bond away cause it makes us uncomfortable.

Here are a few little known facts to those who do not breastfeed:

• Infants who are breastfed eat 8-12 times a day for 10-20 minutes at each meal. Do your math folks. That is every 1-3 hours all day long (and all night). That measures start of feeding to start of feeding, not end to start, so that means you could feed your baby and 40 minutes later, he’ll be hungry again. Take a look at my child. This is quite often the case. — Are you going to banish a mother to another room every time she must feed her baby simply because it makes you uncomfortable? Think of how uncomfortable and embarrassed she must be to have to leave the conversation so often, just to feed her baby.
• Most infants don’t want to eat under a blanket. Why don’t you go around trying to eat a bowl of soup under a blanket everywhere you go and see how you like it? They want to look at their mommies. They want to see what is going on around them.
• Beastfeeding is most often so discreet, sans blanket, that most people don’t even notice what you are doing. It only takes a second to latch a baby on and after that your shirt and baby cover most of what is going on.
• It is often more obvious what you are doing when you have to go through the whole blanket or nursing cover routine.
• 45 states have laws that specifically allow women to breastfeed in ANY public or private location and where there is no law, those women are protected from public indecency laws.